Misfire
by Larathia
Summary: AU - What if, during the assassination mission, the bullet was not stopped by Edea's shield, but reflected by it? (Irvine and Rinoa - just friends, I promise. ;) )
1. The Point of Separation

_Just a signal. I don't have to do it._

That got him through the preparation; steadying himself, taking aim. And then the wiser self intruded. _You know what you'd be doing. He wouldn't._ Matron, their Matron, lost and mad and Seifer right there with her. Maybe she'd told him, reminded him, what they'd all once been, back on the shores of Centra. Maybe he'd chosen - no. No time. Choose, now. For real or to signal. Aim for the head, or the shoulder. To kill or not to kill. 

_At least I know what I'm giving up,_ he thought, and sighted on her head. Pulled the trigger, fired to kill. 

The reaction was faster than the bullet itself. Blinding force lashed back along the bullet's path and struck him squarely. Irvine's hat got the luxury of staying behind, with his gun, as the rest of him was launched, airborne and backwards, with ten times the force of the bullet he'd fired. 

He shouldn't really have had time to think much of anything; he remembered, afterward, the vague sight of Squall, behind the blinding white, leaping off the rooftop in the other direction - charging to the attack. _Just a signal after all._

The other thought was a rather annoyed _and someone needs to find the intelligence team for this mission and kick their asses._

And then explosive pain burst forth, radiating from his spine, arms, hips, legs, and the back of his head as he slammed backwards and full-body into a very solid wall. Sheer force of impact held him there exactly long enough to comprehend that he was _going_ to die, and very soon, and then released him to fall with a thud to the street below. 

Movement was not an option. Ifrit prowled around the inside of his mind, an angry lodger annoyed at his host's uselessness. Irvine released cure spells, one at a time, even as the world went dim. The last thing he heard sounded remarkably like a mob in the beginning stages of panic - which, on later reflection, was probably exactly what it was. 

He woke, which was a surprise in itself. Further surprise ensued as he realized he was not in a jail but surrounded by the clean, sterile walls of a hospital. Bemused wonder filled that portion of his mind that Ifrit had not claimed for his own; miracles apparently did happen, and he owed the ghosts of his adoptive parents a sincere apology. At some point. He debated the idea of moving and opted against it; looked, instead, and realized the vaguely constrictive, nesty sensation was due to being in a body cast. Right up to the chin; probably the head wound was the only thing his spells had had time to heal. He hadn't exactly been fully stocked to start with; Squall had ordered Selphie to pass him the junction before leaving Garden, he'd drawn what he could when he could after getting over the sickening disorientation of a second presence inside his head, but he and they had assumed the assignment temporary. 

"Ah, you're awake, Mr. Green," said a nurse, bustling in, and Irvine decided very quickly that in his current state he did not want to be explaining erections, so he kept his eyes on neutral territory. Such as the wall behind the nurse's head. The oddity of his name could be explained later. "How are you feeling?" 

_Whoa. I can talk? Go me. How the hell long have I been out?_ He blinked, and gave it a go. "A little tied up at the moment," he said, and found his voice rough and hoarse. 

"Well, you've missed the first two weeks, and those are usually the worst," she said brightly, and proceeded to change around several plastic bags - both full and empty - that he realized with vague surprise were connected to him - bound to the cast. "I'll just adjust your pain medications...you're really very lucky to be alive, Mr. Green." 

_Don't I know it,_ was Irvine's personal opinion. "What happened?" 

The nurse was a tease. This would have been welcome at any time _other_ than one where his groin was buried under thick plaster. Her cleavage tried to climb up his nose while she adjusted pillows for him, and, oblivious, she continued, "You got trampled, Mr. Green. You're lucky someone helped you to the hospital, or you surely would have died in that mob." 

"Nrf," was about all Irvine could manage until the cleavage retreated. Plaster was feeling very uncomfortable, and revealing definitively the presence of tubing he was _very_ glad he hadn't been awake to notice being placed. Business. Think business. Think howling amounts of pain...ah. That helped. "Mob?" 

"When those SeeD attacked our Sorceress," nodded the nurse. "It's all taken care of now, though, so don't you worry." 

Ardor of any kind went walking along a beach, possibly in the vicinity of Timber. That sounded...very, very bad, actually. He smiled back at her with lead in his stomach - always be nice to the nurses that see you fed and watered when moving is not an option - and wondered just how bad "bad" was going to turn out to be. He listened carefully to the nurse explaining the voice codes for operating the television, thanked her, and was in no small way relieved when she left. He spent a good while verbally flipping channels, watching newscasts. 

"Bad" was really, really, amazingly bad. Trabia Garden was rubble. Balamb Garden was rubble. Edea had ordered missile strikes. And Galbadia Garden only stood because Edea had, as she'd promised, made it her base. _What happened? What happened to Squall? Zell? Quisty? Sefie?_

Not questions to be asked aloud. Wherever his new identity came from, his survival depended on keeping it intact. And only one Irvine Kinneas would know the names of everyone on that mission. 

He turned the television off. Staring at the ceiling had its benefits. 


	2. Renegade Candy Striper

The news was so consistently bad that Irvine developed a routine of emotionally steeling himself before ordering the television on. The stations were under Edea's rule and put her own spin on events, but the facts were clear enough. 

The world was engulfed in war, and Edea was winning. Dollet had capitulated almost at once, Timber was locked down under martial law. Winhill and Balamb were under siege. 

Irvine listened to all of it - made himself - and tried not to think it was his fault. No word, no word anywhere, of his friends - and the nurses kept calling him "Mr. Green". He didn't find out what his first name was supposed to be until a doctor - with the false joviality often considered by doctors to be a 'friendly bedside manner' - called him Sergius. 

_I guess that lets out being the local John Doe,_ he thought to himself at the time. _Someone gave me an identity. Which means someone knew how much I needed one. But who's left? Are there SeeD operatives still in Deling?_

He didn't dare use healing spells. His progress was carefully monitored, and proof of a junction would make him immediately suspect. Not to mention, with the small stock of spells he'd had time to acquire, there was no guarantee he could heal himself _and_ break out of the thick body cast _and_ get out - naked and unarmed - into Deling proper. And even if he did, where would he go? The Gardens were destroyed. SeeD might be part of the "resistance" forces the newscasts mentioned, or they might not. It certainly wasn't anything he could ask about. 

To occupy his time in between newscasts, Irvine worked on making peace with Ifrit. Whatever else had happened, his junction was the only reason he'd lived this long, and might well be the only thing to get him through future episodes of (hopefully never this bad) luck. Ifrit did not like him, that was certain. The fire junction seemed to delight in prowling around his brain, making him nauseated, giving him headaches. Days blurred, and the news got no better. While he healed, Winhill fell. Edea owned the whole continent, now, and Irvine was starting to look forward to the day he could really hook Ifrit in, and know that someday he wouldn't be able to remember the video footage of the last independent city on the continent going down in flames. 

Irvine was not a man to handle depression well. For weeks after Winhill's destruction he occupied his time being snarky at the nurses, indulging in small rebellions (such as were possible when he couldn't move 98% of his body at all) and generally being a pill. The staff seemed to understand that it was his forced inaction more than anything else that was driving him snarly, though, which reduced his desire to lash out at them considerably. He just didn't have it in him to yell at people who were not, in fact, the reason he was annoyed with the universe. 

"Good afternoon, Mr. Green," said a new voice one day, and although familiar he didn't turn to see who it was. He'd learned the names and habits of about a third of the hospital by then; most voices were familiar to one degree or another. 

The girl came up close enough to the bed so that she overshadowed him, and he looked up to see - Rinoa! His jaw dropped in shock, and she put a finger to his lips to shush him, but her pleased expression told him how much she was loving his surprise. She was dressed as a cheer-volunteer, or candy striper as they were often called, red and white stripes being a predominant part of the uniform. "I hear you've been feeling a little down, Mr. Green," she said with a wink. "Maybe things aren't as bad as you seem to think?" 

"You're alive," he whispered, cheered immensely. "Is - did anyone -" 

"Shhh," she said, speaking very softly. "It's taken months for things to quiet down enough for it to be safe for me to visit you. The newscasts are edited like crazy - this city's totally locked down." 

That did not sound good at all. "Is anyone...?" 

She sighed. "They escaped the prison. A few months ago - I got word. That's part of why I haven't been able to come sooner - the guards were scouring the city for them, I couldn't draw any attention to you. You've done well, not using...you know. Edea knows you were involved - she's got a hunt out for you. But while you're here you're safe; nobody's got a solid description of you. The junction will give it away though." 

Irvine mulled this over. "_You're_ the one who gave me this identity, then." 

"Yes," Rinoa nodded, pleased. "I couldn't do much, and you're lucky someone brought you here because it wasn't me. I checked here when I could, to see if you were alive, and gave them a wallet I'd made up for you. You're officially Sergius Green now, a chocobo rancher, and you got trampled by the mob in the riot." She smiled, happy with her skills. "I paid for your medical care. With what I got out of ...my father's house." 

"I heard," Irvine replied. It had been on the news - that General Caraway had been tried and executed for treason. It didn't take much to know that the "trial" had probably consisted of Edea pointing her finger and declaring him a traitor. 

"I'll save the whole story for another time." She stood up. "I have the rounds to make - I had to take this job to get any time with you that wouldn't be too suspect, and I won't keep it long. Just - stay down, and heal, and we'll do what we can when you're out of here." 

Irvine would've raised a hand to stop her if he could. "Wait. Will you be back - soon? I need to know what's happening. What's going on." 

Rinoa gave him a sad little smile. "Keep watching the news. The worst is usually there. I'll be back when I can - just don't give up, okay?" Taking a deep breath, Rinoa plastered on her bright candy-striper smile and bounced out. 

Irvine sighed and closed his eyes. The others were alive then, at last count. Alive and free. Better off than he was now. 

There had to be _something_ left to work for when he could finally walk. The question was, what would it be? 


	3. First Day Free

Irvine's steps were shaky and uncertain as they left the hospital, but he didn't need more than a cane for support. He thoroughly intended to make full use of the junction, now that there were no witnesses, to get him back on his feet. 

Deling was a much more sullen city than he ever remembered it being. Sullen and quiet, the citizens rushing to their business without ever once glancing up. Irvine tried not to let his jaw drop; Deling City had a (deserved) reputation in the world as the most corrupt and outright villainous city on the planet - as a consequence, the citizens had always had a fierce, bulldog-with-a-mailman's-leg sort of fuck-you mentality and an independent spirit that let them cope with the hopeless corruption of their government and political system. Deling had had revolutions on the order of every decade or so, but the belief among the people that there was _no such thing_ as an uncorrupt government tended to mean only that a new set of scoundrels held the reins of power. 

But now the city was afraid, walking hunched over to hide its face. Deling knew it was the capital city for Edea, and even for a city of rats this was beyond the pale. Irvine turned to look at Rinoa - more to look away from the city's air of defeat than anything else. 

"We'll get rid of her somehow," was Rinoa's softly-spoken verdict. 

Irvine bit his lip on _Fat chance. She's already gotten -_ "Squall?" he asked. If anyone survived, it'd be him. "Quisty?" _Please let there be some word, some sign..._

Rinoa looked alarmed. "Not here!" she hissed quietly, and Irvine blinked. That wasn't Rinoa's "conspiratorial" whisper - or what she seemed to think was conspiratorial. She was really afraid of being overheard. That was enough for him. "We've got a -" 

"Then we go there now," he said firmly. "Don't mind my legs, they'll get the idea eventually. Just lazy." Hell, he'd _crawl_ if it meant getting some answers. 

Rinoa nodded and led him away from the hospital. Irvine forced himself to go as fast as he could manage on legs that hadn't supported his weight for more than half a year, relying on his cane as little as possible. _At least it's done wonders for my posture, but I am so not thinking of Matron telling me to sit up straight. Not now._ No. Focus on his guide, on the route. Rinoa kept an eye out for the possibility of being tracked, but Irvine knew they weren't. Junctioned senses aside, the city was too dispirited to take an interest in the doings of a young couple. She led him down a small side street, then to an old garage in an alley. Moving aside some debris, she revealed a manhole. "Down here," she said. "Are you sure-?" 

"Guns would be nice," Irvine sighed. "But I've still got a guest upstairs and some spells. I'll manage." 

"Oh!" Rinoa chirped, and grinned. "You do have guns. I'm sorry - I forgot." She took off her backpack and pulled out a gun belt - with guns in the holsters. 

Irvine stared at it. It looked like something from an autumn-fest costume, shiny and gaudy. To wrap his head around the truth of Rinoa's actions, he sat on a broken table and took the guns, looking them over. The sights were crooked, they were slightly less powerful than air guns, and all in all he wouldn't trust them to accurately fire a plastic dart. "Let me just say, up front right, that I deeply appreciate the gesture. Okay? Very nice of you to try, it'ss very touching. But Rinoa, if you ever buy me guns again, I'm gonna have to make you eat them." He tossed the guns back to her. "I don't know what the salesmen told you, but the only thing those'd do to a monster is annoy it. If it noticed you shooting it at all." Rinoa looked deflated. "You paid a lot for these?" 

She nodded. "It's what you're good at," she said sheepishly. "And we need everyone we can get." 

"Don't toss 'em, then," said Irvine, getting back on his feet. "They won't hurt a monster, but at point blank range they should do reasonable damage to a person. I'll get a refund on them and use that to get some guns I can use." He eyed the manhole. "Long way down?" 

"Not really," said Rinoa, climbing down. "How will you get down here?" 

"Carefully." Wobbly legs sucked major ass, and Irvine swore under his breath as he carefully levered himself down to the ground and sat on the edge of the manhole. He tossed Rinoa his cane. "I'll stay down there," he said. "Until I can handle shit like walking and running without a cane." His legs could take his weight, he'd had the physical therapy. It was the coordination he'd temporarily lost, and stamina. Without the junction he'd be in a wheelchair still, so thank Hyne for small blessings. Wedging his feet onto the lowest rung he could, he bent until he got the top rung in his hands - then let his legs fall free. _Spindly-armed beanpole twit,_ he swore at himself. He'd never been great at pull-ups. Junctions had _advantages,_ he conceded as he carefully lowered himself to the ground, using only his hands and arms. 

Rinoa had taken her disc-blaster out of her backpack and fitted it to her wrist. She handed him his cane and a flashlight without a word, and put her backpack back on. "It's not much farther." Quickly, she darted back up the ladder and pulled the manhole cover back into place before dropping back into the darkness. "I thought you'd want a light - I don't need one anymore. I know the way." 

Irvine wondered how many times you had to run through the upper sewers before you had your route memorized. At least it _was_ the upper sewers - the waterways the city had designed to handle the occasional Lunar tides from the coast, and the runoff from storms. The _lower_ sewers would kill your sense of smell inside a day. He followed her down the various stone walways, no breath to spare for talking. Of course, if there had been, he would have been swearing at himself. Getting winded just walking around - particularly with a junction - was just _nuts_. 

Of course, so was Rinoa's idea of a resistance movement. He'd heard about her crackpot ideas from Squall, but when she opened a thick, reinforced-steel door and showed him in... 

It was an undercellar. By the look of it, to a bakery. Irvine's mental map of Deling was pretty good; he ran over the route they'd taken, overlaid it on the mental map, and realized they had to be under the Dolletian bakery on 35th. The view, though, did not inspire any desire for non-hospital food. In the room, scattered on bags of flour and meal, were a few dozen people who clearly had nowhere else to go. Some wore suits, some workclothes, but all looked dispirited and worn out. 

"Hi guys," said Rinoa cheerfully. "This is -" she changed gears quickly as Irvine kicked her ankle- "Sergius Green. He'll be working with us for a while." 

Irvine did not want these people knowing his name. Definitely not _these_ people. They had all the fight of newborn kittens, by the look of them. If any were captured, they'd probably sell his identity in a heartbeat to save their own hides. _Sergius Green_ was fine, but he deeply regretted the loss of his hat. He touched his fingers to his forehead instead, where the brim of it would have been. "I'm a little useless at the moment," he admitted, "But I'll work on it." 

"Pick a sack," one man waved. "You look like you need a breather." 

It rankled that the stranger was absolutely right. Ifrit growled in response to Irvine's agitation, offered to fry the man. _No, no frying._ Can't afford the risk. Edea would feel the magic, if he did something so huge as to summon a GF in her own capital city. No summoning. Irvine said, "Don't mind if I do," and settled onto a huge bag of meal. If the city was ever under seige, Irvine decided the very best place to hide would be a bakery. By the look of things they had goods enough to withstand an army. Or feed one. 

Casually, as if just flexing his fingers now that they no longer held a cane, Irvine made a few handsigns. No one commented, no one responded. _No gang members, that's good. No SeeDs, either, and that'll get us killed._

And Rinoa cheerfully oblivious that she didn't have a rebel force here - she had a homeless shelter. 

Irvine really wished he had his hat. To hide under. 


	4. Plans

If there was one thing that could be said of Rinoa, Irvine realized quickly, it was that she didn't know the meaning of "hopeless". It was only one of a great number of words she evidently didn't know the meaning of; he'd debated with himself the wisdom of buying her a dictionary.

If only so people would stop dying.

"Look," he hissed at her one night, after the ragtag remains of their group had staggered off to bed - those that could still move under their own power. "They like you, and they follow you. You've _got_ to stop this! Just because they offer to die for you doesn't mean they _should_!"

Rinoa, just as tired as he was after the long run and the fight before, still had energy enough for temper. "Who else is there?" she demanded. "Tell me that! The Gardens are gone, what's _left_of SeeD is being slaughtered, and this isn't Timber. There's only us. We've got to do what we can!"

Irvine closed his eyes and leaned against the wall. You couldn't hit people well with your eyes closed. "Well," he growled, "We're right good at dropping like flies. Majesty, we have got to stop _dying. _This frontal assault shit has _got_to go."

Names, the habit of names. He at least had one; Sergius Green, as Rinoa had named him, though he'd picked up a variety of nicknames - mostly, of course, having to do with his height or his guns. Though he still hadn't gotten his full coordination back and needed the cane when exhausted, Rinoa's ragtag bunch of refugees had stopped complaining about his presence in the group the first time his gunfire had covered their escape. _Sharpshot_seemed to be the nickname of choice this week. Affably, Irvine was getting into the habit of answering to any nickname that might broadly be aimed at him.

Rinoa was the Queen of Rags. Irvine vaguely recalled Squall once having told him that the group in Timber had called her 'Princess'; Rinoa drew such names to her in the same way gun-related names stuck to him. She was, in many ways, very like the good princess, or good queen, in children's stories. Imperious and not always even remotely connected to the real world, but caring. Even valiant, in her way. But the name was a painful one. They'd lost twelve in the past week alone - all the survivors had seen Rinoa take strips of cloth from the shirts of the dead and tie them to her own clothes. It was starting to become how the group reported the dead - dropping strips of rags in front of Rinoa with blank, accusing gazes.

The price of not being who they once had been was being who they'd been forced to become. Irvine was a sniper, not a sharpshooter, but with the incentive of learning fast or dying he was living up to his nickname in more than a relative way. And Rinoa...

Rinoa was crying. Not huge, loud, dramatic sobs, not a temper tantrum, but tired, quiet tears of pain and loss. "We have to get a way out of this city," she whispered. She didn't want - couldn't afford - for anyone to hear her cry. If the Queen had no hope...

Irvine, leaning heavily on his cane, hobbled over to her and put an arm around her, letting her cry into his shirt while he thought. She had a point. People came to them - good people, in some cases brilliant people - by accident, having nowhere else to go. But few of them had any skill at uncivil disobedience or rebellion - most, actually, were political refugees, people who could do them some good if they were just not _there_, not in Deling, but somewhere else. Like Dollet, or Timber - somewhere they could get news or goods.

Failing any of that, somewhere that, if they were caught, wouldn't lead Edea's soldiers straight to the rest of them. Rinoa turned none away, and he agreed with her reasoning at least in part, but if they could get the more useless ones motivated and on their way it'd make keeping the rest of them alive much easier. "We're not gonna be able to fight our way to the gates," he said slowly. "We just haven't got the weapons, haven't got the training. And if we _did_have it, and used it that way, She'd just send a platoon or two and wipe us out."

From around his chest, muffled by his shirt, Rinoa answered, "You're not being very reassuring."

He patted her hair. "Wasn't intending to be," he said lightly. "Can't do it head on. But we can be sneaky?"

That got her attention. "Tell me what you're thinking," she demanded.

"I'm thinking we've got a lot of work to do, but we can do this." Carefully, he levered himself down onto a crate, and tried not to think of how dog tired he was. "You and me both...lot of work."

Rinoa cocked her head at him, and then sat down next to him, hugging her knees to her chest and watching him over them. She looked very much the little girl, curled like that, and he found it unnerving. "What do I need to do?"

_When did I become the leader?_ was Irvine's first thought. But - if it meant not dying... "We've got some government workers, don't we?" he asked. "You need to start asking them about what they know. Find out who took their jobs, what their jobs _were_. If we can keep the government here unstable, it'll be easier to bribe our way out or make a way some other how. We need to know what She's doing. And where. We can get away with shit as long as She doesn't come back here Herself, see?"

"I see," she said slowly. "We're not going to liberate Deling, are we?"

Irvine shook his head. "This is Her capital and we don't have anything here that has a chance in hell of killing Her. Or even giving Her a headache. We'll have to leave that to Squall, if he's still out there, or whoever takes up the gun for it because we just _can't_, it's that simple. But - if we make it so we can get people who could help out of the city, out to where they can hook up with people who could take Her on..." He shrugged. "It's not big, but it's what we can do. Maybe they can get their hands on something big enough so they can come back and save _us_later on."

Rinoa rocked back and forth, thinking this over. "What do you need to do?" she asked at last.

"Guns," he said. "These sparkly things shoot shit, Majesty. Sad but true - _really_sad. I need real guns, proper guns. And a good sniper rifle. When you've got your contacts and know who needs to die, I'll take care of it for you. None of this frontal assault shit that gets us killed. Just me and a good rifle and a little time."

They were in a guarded cellar connected to the upper sewers. It was as safe a place as could be found, and Irvine knew it. When Rinoa didn't answer, he found himself dozing. He'd had to cover their escape, emptying round after round at soldiers and guards, trying to hit at least one of them while they ran and ducked into sewers and ran some more. He was starting to feel snarly over the number of bullets wasted; his belief in economy of ammunition was approaching the fanatical as it became harder for any but Edea's own enforcers to acquire. But he lacked the tools to refine the guns Rinoa had given him, and lacked the coordination to get away with looting guns from their enemies. In the absence of quality, quantity had to suffice.

"This isn't going to be over soon," said Rinoa to herself, thoughtfully. "Sergius."

It took a few seconds for the name to filter through rising exhaustion as being meant for him. "Mmmm?"

Rinoa reached over and ran her fingers over his, over the bare tips his gloves didn't cover. It snapped him awake, and she smiled at him. "Go work in the junk shop," she said. "You know more about weapons than anyone else we have. If you work there, you'll get the parts and tools you need to make things work the way they should."

"R-" he caught himself. "Majesty - you sure you'll be okay?"

This time the smile was more rueful. "Yes," she said. "I survived six months without you, after all, waiting for you to heal. I'll be fine."

"Tomorrow, then," he said, and pulled off his jacket. It would serve as a short blanket. The crate would serve as a bed. He'd learned, in the weeks since leaving the hospital, to make himself at home and comfortable anywhere.

Rinoa saw him settled, took a deep breath, wiped away her tears and put on a bright smile. It was time to talk to people.


	5. Candyman

The room reeked of self-abandonment. Irvine sat in a chair he'd cleaned off, tilted onto its back legs against the wall, so that he could stare at the spiderwebs and insect nests on the ceiling. It was far cleaner than the rest of the squalid apartment. The place reeked of vomit, feces and urine buried under ancient newspapers and empty bottles, food wrappers and takeout boxes, sweat and sex and rot. Addicts never died prettily.

The boy was no older than fourteen, lying on the covers of the cleaned-off bed where Irvine had laid him. Spark, he was called, for his tendency to carry a striking flint to light...whatever might need setting afire. It couldn't apply to any physical feature, not anymore, not now. There was too little to the boy, under the ragged attempt at whore's dress, and there would be less soon. Irvine stared at the ceiling and waited. There wasn't much else to be done. He'd rouse or not, reach lucidity or not.

He'd have a trail, or a clue, but he couldn't save anyone. Spark was the sixth whore he'd heard rumor of in two weeks.

There was...not a procedure, no, but an etiquette to it all. Irvine had searched nothing, touched only to clean. The addicts and the whores tended to look poorly on anyone attempting to save them or convert them, which he knew well from his own time on the streets. Once you got used to the understanding that it was a fast slide and everyone knew it...and no one cared...the prevalent attitudes were much easier to work with.

He glanced over when he heard Spark move, sighed and sent up a general prayer of vague hope when he realized it was so the boy could vomit over the side of the mattress. "Where'd you get it?" he asked.

And waited, while Spark shuddered his way through a weak convulsion. "Who're you?"

"Cowboy," said Irvine, using the nickname most of the whores used for him. "Somebody's selling poison apples, Spark."

The dull blankness in Spark's vomit-spackled face dropped into apathetic despair. "...Candyman," he said softly, one hand reaching as another convulsion hit. Irvine let Spark hold his hand. It probably wouldn't be much longer. The boy didn't have much energy left. He ticked over the possible dealers who might use such a name while Spark retched and shuddered.

Lucidity after all, before death. One more thing to get angry about. Spark was crying weakly, aware he was going to die and helpless to do anything about it. At least this time Irvine had caught up before death. At least this time, he had a name. "Where?" he asked softly. "Do you remember where?"

It took a while before Spark had the breath to answer, and when he did, it was an unhelpful, "No." He didn't remember. Irvine supposed he should be glad just for the name. A location probably would have made it too easy.

He didn't let go until Spark coughed blood, dying in his bed. He put the boy's hand on the rotted quilt and got up, shaking his head. This made six. The enforcers didn't care about the lowest strata, and drug dealers and whores were always assumed to be part of that lowest strata. Irvine knew better. This dealer, this Candyman, could be anyone. He could be selling to anyone. Whores died because whores had nowhere to go, no access to proper treatment and nothing to do with their lives if they got it - but they were still part of the city. They weren't _nobodies._ They were just vulnerable.

Irvine left the apartment building via the roof, where he could think and breathe and watch the stars.

Candyman. And six whores - probably more who weren't, who could afford treatment. He connected stars into streetmaps, mentally labeling the working routes of the whores he'd known better than Spark. Contained area? New dealer, possibly. Spark hadn't remembered where he'd bought Candyman's poisons at, which led Irvine to guess that he'd already been high and gotten more. A club, possibly, or just outside of one...

He made a list, and then hopped off the roof into an alley. You couldn't really get sentimental over street people. Or you _could_, but it would wear you down and ultimately kill. There were too many things that preyed on them, there were too many sad stories. But he did care. Enough to act, and that was the best measure of caring there could really be.

*

Four nights and two more dead later, Irvine leaned against a street light with his hands in his pockets, watching a man set up shop across the way. Edea didn't outlaw drugs of any kind - evidently saw no point in it - so there was no subterfuge. Irvine watched, and compared what he saw against the descriptions he'd garnered.

Then he wandered over, as casual as any.

"Buzz off," was the greeting he got. "This is my corner."

"I don't deal," said Irvine, and pulled out a deck. "I'm more into cards."

The other gave him a 'yeah, so?' look. "It's still my corner."

Irvine shrugged. "Are you the one they call the Candyman?" he asked, on the theory that confirmation couldn't hurt.

The dealer looked suspicious now. "Look, if you're with the enforcers, I got my permits," he protested. "You don't take, so what's your deal?"

"I'm not with the enforcers," said Irvine, shaking his head. "I just heard the Candyman gave...special deals."

"You ain't cute enough."

Irvine shrugged. "That's what it takes to get a break around here?" he asked, turning away. He didn't want the Candyman to see his face. He understood now. The dealer offered his lovers drugs for sex, and kept his profits high by mixing them with dangerous chemicals.

"It's what it takes with me, pal," said the Candyman.

Irvine looked up at the stars. He really should be sure. Street names and the testimony of the near-incoherent...he wasn't a judge but he should be more sure than that, anyway. "So you are the Candyman?"

The dealer chuckled. "That's what they call me."

That was all he needed. Irvine turned around, and slammed the man down into the folding metal chair the Candyman had set up. His other hand came out of its pocket, revealing a pistol with a silencer. It was really very quick.

Irvine picked up the Candyman's stash - of cash as well as drugs and weapons - and ducked down an alley and back into the sewers. He'd get an old friend to look the drugs over, and keep what was good. It worked far better as a bribe than cash alone, sometimes.

It was nowhere near enough payment for watching kids die, but it was a start.


	6. Fireworks

The beginnings of a real plan helped hugely. _Direction_ helped hugely.

It was, being fair, the only thing that seemed to be going right at all. The news of the outside world just seemed to be getting worse.

There was a place set aside now, on the triumphal arch that had been the site of the failed assassination mission. Bas reliefs had been removed, leaving smooth stone, and as the months passed Rinoa and Irvine found out why.

The first face on the new blank stone was a quite accurate bas-relief of General Caraway. And under the bas-relief of his face, Edea had put his body (now quite decayed) in a cage, to hang and swing and feed the birds. Some people stared at it, as the breezes under the arch pushed the narrow cage – meant to keep rotting limbs from landing on people only – to and fro. Others hurried past, pretending it wasn't there.

Irvine had vaguely expected Rinoa to cry, when he'd seen it. Or at least, expected that she _had_ cried. He rather suspected it had first gone up while he was still in the hospital, but he'd rather avoided the park until he was well enough to run if necessary. The bones were nearly bare in the swinging cage by the time he'd realized what it was.

And what it wasn't. "They don't know who he was," Rinoa said one night, while he was on watch duty over their base-of-the-week. "Or who I am. She promised when she put him up there that all our friends would be next to him. There's a space left for you, and for me." Her tone was soft and low, so as not to carry at all, and she'd taken to wearing cloth over her face to keep lip-readers at bay. "She knew how many he'd hired from his bank accounts. She wants me because...I'm me, really. But she hasn't caught any of us yet. I don't know about you but I call that a good sign."

Hopefully. It was a big world.

The Plan, as it were, was simple. Get people into the Identification offices, where the official IDCs were made. Get people into every stage of the ID-making process, so that the resistance could create new identities for itself as needed. Give those who couldn't fight, and couldn't help outside the city, jobs where they could listen. Jobs where they could bring news. Bring names.

Irvine would remove the names that wouldn't deal. Deling had always been corrupt – farther back than living memory, the city had had corruption and crime at every level. Edea ruling the place had, perhaps not surprisingly, cut _down_ on corruption purely because defying her was such a personally terrifying prospect. But even Edea couldn't be everywhere at once, and the more she clamped down on her city, the more willing people became to take a few risks in the name of having a good supper when she wasn't around.

Not surprisingly, the bulk of this Plan required Rinoa, and her skill at convincing people to listen to her. It required time, to get the new ID cards and get people properly settled in new identities. And it required training, so that they could get jobs in the right places.

Irvine watched, for the most part. Backed her – sometimes literally, with height and guns – and talked it over with her when others slept. He wasn't leader material; he'd known that for a long time. Snipers generally weren't in any case, but he had the training. He gave that to Rinoa, and watched her be sweet and understanding and persuasive, and was deeply relieved he didn't have to lead. Didn't have to be the _heart_ of a resistance cell. Because he understood what Rinoa refused to accept; the whole thing was pushing water uphill with a cheesecloth, and if the rest of their team didn't _someday_ come to rescue them (ideally with an army) they were, sooner or later, all going to get caught in Edea's traps.

While she trained their would-be fellow rebels, he practiced changing identities and started really _learning_ Deling City. When the time came that Rinoa had her network in place, he'd probably have to be able to get away with shooting people all over the city. Edea's white-and-gold honor guard wouldn't like that, and they were given any junctions that Edea recovered from the Gardens. They'd be fast, strong, and armed with magic as well as guns. He needed to know his escape routes, and his vantage points.

It was while on this daily errand that he saw her.

Most of her, anyway. What was left of her.

Selphie's body, in a new cage, swaying in the breezes through the triumphal arch.

There was a crowd dispersing as he approached; people watching the new bas-relief being set in place of Selphie's face, and the cage with her body in it being hung on a hook below it. Barely recognizable, even for him; it looked like she'd been caught in a blast, and her handlers hadn't exactly been careful with her corpse.

Irvine found a bench to sit on so his height wouldn't draw any attention. His hair was short, frazzled and white today, touches of makeup to make him look older, though watching the cage swing he didn't really feel he needed it. _Aw, baby...what happened to you?_ The news might take days before the spin doctors had it sorted to Edea's satisfaction. One less candle out there in the world.

He couldn't stay. The honor guard would be watching for anyone who reacted too personally to the body swinging in the breezes. She wouldn't want that. He leaned forward, over his knees – his back didn't bend anymore, so the gesture was sharp, but it still gave the impression of stretching, of catching breath. _Damn. Damn, damn, damn._ He'd have to tell Rinoa.

Getting to his feet, the crowd murmured speculations of a celebratory parade in honor of the 'traitor's death. Irvine realized he was getting used to not showing what he felt as he listened, walking slowly through the streets. _She'd probably like that, honestly. Nothing seemed to make her happier than a load of fireworks._ He turned the fading memories over in his mind, Selphie as a little child at Matron's house, fireworks on the beach. As he rounded a corner into an alleyway, heading for a manhole cover that would take him into the sewers, he mentally offered the memories up to Ifrit.

_I don't think I'll be needing these anymore. _

He'd give Rinoa the news in private, in case she needed to cry. He'd finish his scouting after sundown. He needed to work on fitting in with the evening party crowd at need.


End file.
